Benito Mussolini
In the throes of the Second World War, Italy’s notorious leader, Benito Mussolini, found himself on the wrong side of history. This mastermind of Fascism was dethroned by his very own Fascist Grand Council in July 1943, following the Allies’ strategic invasion of Sicily. Incarcerated in a lofty mountaintop prison, Mussolini’s freedom seemed lost until a bold, elite S.S. unit orchestrated a daring glider raid in September 1943, liberating him from his cliffside confines.
Mussolini, once a formidable dictator, found himself puppeteering the diminished Italian Social Republic, dancing to the tune of German overlords. However, the war’s pendulum had swung against the Axis, and the Italian people had grown weary of their tin-pot tyrant. On April 27th, 1945, as Allied forces closed in, partisans captured him and his lover. The next day, their lifeless bodies dangled from meat hooks in Milan’s town square, a grim spectacle for all to see.